“It takes more than love to make a romantic relationship work.”

I don’t know if this is an actual cliche or if it’s one of those things that seems so obvious that it sounded like one the very first time someone realized it. Regardless, it is true because love is innately fantastic and fucking terrible.

You need a gigantic pile of other good stuff to balance it all out, or when the inevitable unpleasantness happens, you fall on your face. It can be one of those poor, bad times most folks’ vows warn them about, or–let’s pretend you have a wonderful, happy, fairy-tale quality life and there are no grey clouds EVER and your love is pure and eternal (which is a load of bunk, but OK)–one of you dies. Surely losing your Disney-style partner will tear out your insides and that is what your love earned you. Love requires mutual vulnerability, which is why where there is extreme happiness there will always be extreme pain.

However, if you have enough other good stuff it is not all doom and gloom. And that is why I wish that for just a short while, we could obsess over what indeed that other stuff essentially is, instead of continuing society’s mind-numbing obsession with love and romance, the knowledge of which doesn’t amount to a pile of beans in the long-term. Falling in love is easy! Romance is everywhere and transient! Anybody can have an affair with most anybody else and that doesn’t mean they should, or that it will last, or, rarest of all, that they’ll be happy.

Life is dripping with frustrating examples, but the kicker is, if we knew what that other stuff was, if we knew what it really takes–and no, the answer isn’t “work,” goddamn the Protestant work ethic–then we could all stop wasting our time and skip to being happy and/or move on.

That is what I’m talking about–being happy.

To have a good, happy relationship, you can’t be obsessed with the notion of romance or else you find yourself neck deep in expectations galore that only set you up for failure and frustration. Our culture beats the idea that we should be over our heads our whole lives, and if you don’t think so, consider personal ads. At this point in time it’s totally normal and acceptable and often suggested to place a personal ad for a romantic partner. But what about personal ads for friends or any other kind of intimate relationship? Go and try it and see what kind of “friends” turn up. I guarantee they’ll want more than just hangouts. You see, even the word “intimate” has been tainted by the OwR! But unromantic intimacy is SO very important and sometimes I feel like I’m taking crazy pills because its value is so infrequently expressed.

I think I take romance’s image so personally because of that 9 year relationship thing that I’m in. You see, people’s ideas about love offend me in the same way that a 1950s child wearing a plastic feather headdress and making “woh-woh-woh” sounds would offend a Native American. It is totally inaccurate, simplistic, and cheap. To claim an understanding with such an apparent total lack of any is insulting no matter the subject.

I am working on figuring out what that necessary other good stuff is and so far I have a three-part hypothesis: to make and keep a romantic relationship alive and healthy, all partners must possess respect, complimentary values, and a balance of power. You also need all those others things that all non-business relationships require, like actually liking each other, being able to converse easily, having a few things in common, and so on. But for an acquaintance or friendship to blossom into perennial romance you need R,CV & P.

Personally, I think respect is the most important factor because that’s the one that enables fire to ignite time after time after time. After all, being in love is not a constant thing. All things that burn exhaust themselves at least for a while, so it’s important to have the ability to fall in love over and over, and more deeply and passionately, throughout the duration of the relationship. To have fire you need the freedom and safety of respect. Freedom to explore yourself and each other and all that life has to offer, and the safety of the knowledge that regardless of how that exploration goes, if you fail or succeed, at the end of the day you’re not going to be looked down upon for it. I believe it is respect that allows the phenomena of adoration, for you can’t think somebody is “just SO amazing!” if you don’t truly marvel at their humanity.

Complimentary values are a bit more pragmatic, but oh so important for carrying out your romance in the world in which we all live. They will allow you to deal (or not deal) with jealousy, prioritize your time and lives, and make sure that everyone in the relationship feels that they matter and life is well spent. If it is very important to one partner to have children and the other never wants children, that’s bad romance joojoo. If one person likes to flirt and thinks jealousy is retarded and another partner thinks jealousy is a legit way of showing that they care, again abandon ship. The whole cat and mouse thing that the OwR teaches us leads many folks into such situations and it’s just not a water in which love can swim for long.

The balance of power rules over the other two. Each relationship can have totally unique and atraditional power structures but regardless of distribution it needs to even out “in the wash.” For example, let’s look at the much-criticized “traditional” western gender role romantic relationship. The masculine partner wins the bread and uses a stern hand with the children and the feminine partner reigns over the household and is sensitive and all of that. IF both partners honestly respect each other for the role they fill, and their own roles are in line with their values and are emotionally fulfilling, and each has equal power over different things (maybe the M earns the money but F handles all the finances, that sort of thing), they can have a healthy, happy romance together. Where we’ve run into problems galore is that these roles are NOT for most folks, and yet most try them out anyways because they think they’re supposed to.

When there’s an issue with any of these three factors, there will be tension. And where there’s tension there will be arguments, misunderstandings, etc. But if the foundation of respect is strong enough, you bet your booties you can realign the power and reassert the values of the relationship, too.

And you can fall in love all over again. <3<3<3

Yes, all of it.

That is all.

For ’80s Night, oh yeah!

Blonde

I receive plenty of sweetness, polite manners, and unwanted sexual remarks and advances. The assumption seems to be that I am younger, less experienced, more naive, and kinder than I actually am. When I put my foot down ignorance is thought to be the cause.

Light Brown

I receive considerably less remarks, questions, comments and awareness of my existence in general. I’m assumed to be less forgiving and funny, more shy and with greater direction than I am or have. When I put my foot down people are more willing to believe my reasons are good ones.

Dark Brown

I receive more requests for advice and input, name-calling, and rants about things people assume I oppose (or against things they think I support). I’m assumed to be more seriously-minded, independent, smart and mean than I actually am. When I put my foot down it’s just because I’m a bitch.

Auburn (in various shades/intensities)

I’m the brunt of fewer assumptions and suppositions and am treated the most like who I actually am, which is why sooner or later I always return to it. The bolder the red the nicer people tend to be.

Purple

Old people really like it, maybe because they relate to that level of not caring about aesthetical norms. Homeless people warm up to me more quickly than usual, I think because it makes me look less straight-laced than they think I am with normally-colored hair. People in general are friendlier to the point that if I go anywhere at all someone will act palsy towards me. In all cases I think the central message purple hair sends out is “No, it’s cool, I’m not here to judge anybody!”

Pink

I am the hero of little girls everywhere! Their tiny jaws drop and giggles aplenty ensue upon sighting the glory of my pinkness. It will be a sad thing to turn my back on this new-found army of revelatory joy.

Natural

I don’t remember. . .it’s been a few years.

(Quick tidbit: Mother’s Day was originally a day a bunch of mothers got together and voiced their opposition to war, appealing to people on behalf of their children who go off and die for no good reason. Some non-mothers thought that was cute so they made it a holiday, sort of a mom-centric Memorial Day with a heavier pro-peace slant)

OK, we took a day that was supposed to be about mother’s standing up and saying war is bad and isn’t that cool and we should listen to and respect our mums–a great thing to observe–and turned it into a generalized celebration that means nothing. It’s not about how strong and courageous mothers are–it celebrates how they’re the “best!” It’s not about all the things that moms have accomplished or what they contribute (besides offspring, that is)–it celebrates all the aspects of motherhood that are already overly romanticized and valued, and in my mind harmfully stereotyped.

The fact that our “celebration” actually totally ignores the desires of the ones being celebrated is what really kicks me in the tuchus. Mother’s Day exemplifies how truly unvalued mothers–and women in general–are when you zoom out beyond the family unit by warping a day they tried to use to promote awareness of the harsh realities of war into a day they’re told to shut up and get flowers shoved in their faces.

Re: Birthdays

I propose that the true tragedy of being born is that never in life will we ever be that close to anyone or anything again. Besides brief spiritual revelations, however one may come by them, everything in life is so painfully separate–and it is our fault. The price is a constant struggle for meaning, for intimacy with greatness.

I am always, always so very lonely.

When the sun goes down and the moon comes up I’m gonna go out and prowl..Oh ya! Don’t come lookin’ for your pussy cat, cause I won’t be here no how! Whoa! How does that grab you darlin’?”

while others are sweet and respectful like Melanie’s lament

When I finish my laundry and air out my head Gonna look for another long-haired man to help me make my bed You know that I’ll miss you, but, strangely I’m glad Gonna make it without you And that’s what’s so sad.”

Obviously music is reflecting real life in this case, as I’m sure you can call to mind a dozen instances in your real life, movies, books and whatever, where a caring friend has told an ex-coupled person something along the lines of, “why don’t you get back out there already?” or offered to set them up with someone they believe to be a suitable mate. This is to the point that it seems like “moving on” is actually considered the same thing as moving onto other romantic partners. Or maybe it’s just the secret to achieving that resolution. Whatever. Here is the query I wanted to get to in, admittedly, a ridiculously roundabout way: how does one tell they are sufficiently “over” an ex without the addition of a new relationship? Consider anyone you know who remained single (for at least a relatively long while) after a break-up. At what point did you, as only a secondhand observer, consider that person to have successfully dealt with whatever healing was necessary from that relationship? If the ex-partner of that person re-entered the dating world before them how would that effect your perception of who-got-the-rottener-deal?

Weird, eh? But do you know what is le crap!? Can you think of many songs about breaking up/getting over somebody/moving on that don’t at least hint or threat other/new dudes and ladies? There’s plenty along the lines of “you’re such a dick/bitch” and “wow that was messed up, thanks” but try to find one that says, “I sure am glad to be free from all our coupled crap and be reunited with the joys of being on my own.” Maybe there are like two out there, which is by no means enough to instill me with any confidence in our society’s outlook on romance. The rarity of such songs mirrors the rarity of our personal strength.

Which reminds me of another thing!

. . .

OK, that’s where I meant to link to a whole tangential rant about The Obsession with Romance, but after beginning said post I was quickly distracted and haven’t returned to the right mindset to finish. So there’s another thing to add to the To Write List.

Western proverb: “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”

Eastern proverb: “The quacking duck gets shot.”

A silly midwife saying:

“Let’s make like a baby and slip on outta here!”

Intrigued that 3 words all meaning essentially “a raised area of something” rhymed so perfectly, I thought maybe “ump” was a morpheme, so I looked up the etymology for “lumps,” “humps,” and “bumps.” Yes, this was unfortunately inspired by the truly terrible song “My Humps,” but nevermind that–here you go:

lump (n.) c.1300, lumpe, perhaps from a Scandinavian source (cf. cognate Dan. lumpe, 16c.), of unknown origin. Phrase lump in (one’s) throat “feeling of tightness brought on by emotion” is from 1803. Lumps “hard knocks, a beating” is colloquial, from 1935.

hump 1681 (in hump-backed), from Du. homp “lump,” from M.L.G. hump “bump,” from P.Gmc. *khump-. Replaced, or perhaps influenced by, O.E. crump. A meaning attested from 1901 is “mound in a railway yard over which cars must be pushed,” which may be behind the fig. sense of “critical point of an undertaking” (1914). The verb meaning “to do the sex act with” is attested from 1785, but the source of this indicates it is an older word. Humpback whale is from 1725.

bump 1611, perhaps Scand., probably echoic, original sense was “hitting” then of “swelling from being hit.” Also has a long association with obs. bum “to make a booming noise,” which influenced surviving senses like bumper crop, for something full to the brim. Bumpers first recorded 1839, on railroad cars; 1926 on automobiles. To bump into “meet” is from 1880s; to bump off “kill” is 1908 in underworld slang.

So OK, no morphemes there, just the common possibly Scandinavian background. I guess all those mountains, lakes, flatlands and fjords made them really aware of ups and downs? I like to think it’s more likely that the English found the sound “ump” funnier than the Latin, German and Celtic terms for the same things and over time adopted lumps, bumps and humps for humor’s sake, but probably I’m only humoring myself with that theory!

I bend over a lot at work loading laundry, cleaning showers, and so on, and I noticed when I first started there that if there were people around, particularly behind me, I tended to squat down or work sideways, as if I was wearing a dress and afraid I might flash somebody. Now I just do my work and don’t worry about my ass sticking out at people all the time. We’re all women and nobody cares.

This intrigued me yesterday because there happened to be one of our males-who-identifies-as-a-woman and a couple of ladies-who-like-ladies present at the same time and my mode of going about my business remained just as functional and unladylike. This implied that my comfort wasn’t because we all had vaginas, and it wasn’t because there was a guarantee of absent sexual objectification, it was because we all had feminine identities. There’s something resembling visual assault when an unwelcomed dude does the leering, but when it’s a woman it merely is what it is instead of carrying all that weight of social power.

That last thought is what made me realize, “Holy shit, I’m experiencing the validity of Separatism!”

Both the Lesbian Feminism movement and Muslim culture preach the empowerment of private all-woman spaces. It’s a connection that amuses me and to a degree they’re right. Living every day in a man-dominated world can be downright exhausting, so a man-free zone provides a sanctuary where one can relax and just be. I see it work for the women all the time, and I am now seeing how it works for me, for after working a shift Upstairs I am often anxious and hyped up on adrenaline, whereas after working a shift Downstairs I feel content and focused.

It’s nice!